


Darkest of Stars

by Savanir



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Female Reader, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Flirting, Fluff, For Darkstar mostly, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reader-Insert, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 19,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25882459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savanir/pseuds/Savanir
Summary: “I have to train-”at that point the little thing suddenly took to attacking your shoe. Your leather shoe.“stop that,no. bad dog” and the pup actually backed off a bit again. Glancing at the lab coat guy revealed him having a slight smirk.“it’s all in the files miss”
Relationships: Darkstar & Reader, Rufus Shinra/Reader
Comments: 33
Kudos: 160





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Before anything else I would want to let it be known that this fic primary focus is actually Darkstar. His untapped potential story wise won’t leave me alone.  
> There is just so much amazing art out there, one in particular has inspired me to write this and I will tag it when it’s appropriate seeing as I don’t want to spoiler anything before it has even begun.
> 
> Also a massive shout out to the wonderful Sel who was so nice to beta read this for me.   
> UPDATE: the amazing Sel made this for me as a secret santa gift and I am this close to vibrating out of my skin because it is a comic version of the first chapter holy heck  
> https://twitter.com/MondselDraws/status/1347994684396892160
> 
> That’s all for now ^v^

When you took a secretarial job at the Shinra tower you had never expected things to turn into… this.  
It all started with that Pet questionnaire, the one that asked you and your colleague’s whether you had experience with dogs in particular, which you did with your family of veterinarians and animal trainers, you remember purposefully doing ‘something different’. Being rebellious and unwilling to continue your parents legacy.

The questionnaire also asked about previous pet ownership experience and if the one answering would mind having a pet. You could still clearly remember the long nights filled with foster cats and dogs. You didn’t mind the idea of having a pet again, but you were just too busy. Work at Shinra demands one full dedication.

This questionnaire was probably another attempt to measure everyone’s empathy levels or something, but at the same time you probably should have known it would lead to this.  
Now the focus on animal training made a lot more sense.

The little pup at your feet merely growled at you in feisty defiance.

“this one will be your responsibility from now on” says the skeevy guy in a lab coat.

You didn’t like him, you didn’t like this place, this sterile empty metal void room, you were very much on edge and you wanted to leave.  
In your mind you kept cursing your friend in SOLDIER for allowing him to tell you all sorts of creepy stories about the science department. You thought you did a decent job of avoiding having anything to do with this particular branch of the corporation, but alas, here you are.

“I-” you hesitated, unwilling to take your eyes off of the off colour guard dog pup, but at the same time you absolutely didn’t want to take your eyes off of the lab coat guy, whose eyes made your skin crawl, “I have to train-”

at that point the little thing suddenly took to attacking your shoe. Your leather shoe.

“stop that, no. bad dog” and the pup actually backed off a bit again. Glancing at the lab coat guy revealed him having a slight smirk.

“it’s all in the files miss” right, the files, aka the ungodly amount of paper that he pushed into your arms right after presenting this little monster to you. “Shinra is expecting great results from you”

“but what is his-”

“in the files, miss” the guy already left the room. In the files huh…

after quickly skimming some of said files it was soon revealed that this particular bit of info was in fact ‘not’ in the files. Namely its name.  
What however was in the files was the bit that told you that if your assigned pup did not make the final evaluation it would never ‘get’ a name.

You put the files back on the metal table in the room and moved to carefully pick up the dog, it let you. But you could still feel the low growling rumble reverberate through its tiny body.

“I have to call you something… I guess I’ll just stick with dog and pup for now” and upon closer inspection it was revealed to you that this particular pup was in fact a boy, great, no more calling him and it from now on.

He really was oddly coloured for a Shinra guard dog though, you were used to the pitch black beasts prowling around in some of the military police squads, but this one had a bit of a purple ish tint to it. And it’s eyes were a haunting red. It still had the ever familiar back whip, and now that you actually had a hold on it you noticed that it had a slight fuzz of fur all over his body.  
And judging by his skull and paws you figured it would also get a bit bigger than those regular guard dogs. 

Which was just fantastic, you’re not particularly strong so you’ll have to demand it’s attention, loyalty and respect from day one or he’ll just walk all over you.

the little thing was squirming in your hold, “stop that” he did and basically went completely limp, but he did make one last attempt to nip at your fingers.

You were sure it would grow into a frightening beast eventually, but now it looked like a misshapen pup, paws and ears too big for his comparatively small body.

“Let’s go through those papers, and train you up big and strong so you’ll earn your name”

Despite it’s generally freakish appearance, you were already attached to it, goddammit.

  
The pup really is a little monster, he needs constant supervision which you have the time for now because you’ve been relieved of your old secretarial duties just to train the little shit.  
It made sense, but you were still caught off guard when you found out.

That, and the fact that you had clearance to… train areas now.

The pup destroys everything he can get his little jaws and paws on, and he has absolutely zero control over his back whip. Not to mention the barking, goddess it never ends. For now however the good ol’ spray in the face with water to snap him out of it trick still worked, so you made good use of that.

Besides that it is a good thing that the pup is very eager to please and food motivated. He learns insanely fast, which can be problematic because you’re worried it might learn the wrong things.

After going through all the files you’ve thrown more than half of it in the trash and written up your own training regimen. If Shinra wanted an idiot who blindly followed a piece of paper they wouldn’t have specifically searched for people with previous experience.

As for the goal you’re working towards, the papers told you that this pup (might, maybe) will become the personal guard dog of a high standing VIP in Shinra. There is a hefty reward and a raise waiting for the trainer of the pup who gets chosen so you’re certainly motivated.

And also you’re afraid to fail, Shinra isn’t kind to those who fail…  
That was something your friend in SOLDIER reminded you off, every once in a while. He always framed it as him just sharing some juicy gossip, but you both knew better. He was looking out for you, and got rid of your initial naïveté pretty fast.

You wondered what Kunsel would say after you introduced your little beast of mass destruction to him.

  
“Heel! … very good” the pup, now the size and weight of a 20 kg dog, is technically in his rebellious teenage phase. However it seems that R&D have genetic’d that stuff out of him because he’s nowhere near as awful as you were worried he’d be.

There is no period of time where he just forgets or straight up ignores commands, however, he did double down on the protective stuff.  
he’s very…

Loud growling fills the training area as your dog notices the turk far before you did.

“no, bad! No growling without permission” you reprimand him which stops the growling but he keeps sneering at the turk.

They’ve been showing up to ‘oversee’ more lately and it’s certainly putting you on edge, which of course your pup picks up on. And that does make for some very tense moments.

Overall your pup is a stellar student, and under your guidance he grows rapidly both physically and … loyally.

Eventually the turk presence goes away again and with it there are suddenly more slots available to train in the provided areas.  
You’re not stupid, you can put two and two together, and you’re happy you and your buddy have passed that test.

  
At some point after that, your dog reaches the size where he can easily perch his front legs on your shoulders if he stands up on his hind legs. This is an issue, because he doesn’t seem to realize his size and weight yet and you’ve been floored quite often.  
But now that he has reached an agreeable size (as deemed by the R&D department) and has most if not all of the general commands in his head the time has come to move to proper combat training.

You obviously have no experience in that field and it’s been rough.

“Kunsel I need your help” you look harried and your dog stands on high alert besides you giving the SOLDIER in question the stink eye.

The SOLDIER gives the dog a slight wince in return, they are not big fans of one another at all, “alright, what do you need, though keep in mind I might not-”

“you can, I need a couple materia lessons so I can get a proper cure off”

“… okay why?”

“R&D has decided he’s ready for combat training and if I have to see him limping and bleeding one more time without being able to do anything about it I will snap”

“ah, I was already worried they’d involve you in that, figures”

“figures? Why? I don’t get it at all, wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to have someone from the… I don’t know, the military police or something train him? I mean, I’m glad they aren’t taking him away from me… yet” you pet his head and the dog’s tiny tail gives a couple wags in return.

“no they don’t want him bonding with any more people than he already has… okay so they just have you do combat commands as well now?”

“yeah… for now I mostly just kinda stand around and be protected by him, and it’s just awful. Please help”

“alright, you owe me though” he fidgets with his helmet but gives you a happy grin when he sees how obviously you light up.

“thanks Kuns, you’re the best”

And later you find out that Kunsel is a great teacher, all his explanations are clear and make coherent sense. And you’re very glad he doesn’t seem to mind doing it.  
He says it makes him nostalgic, but he doesn’t ever really elaborate on that.

Now armed with the ability to cure your pup’s wounds, combat training goes a lot smoother. It’s still pretty awful though.  
Eventually all this combat stuff will be for the Shinra VIP, if your pup makes it that far. But you’re carefully optimistic, seeing as your dog has really grown into the genetic stuff they did to him, he’s really turning into the terrifying canine beast you always imagined it could be.

You were so mad when they cropped his ears though… you may have thrown some stuff around in the training area in anger.

Eventually your pup is fully grown and is now capable of looking you directly in the eyes without having to look up, and if you weren’t so used to it now you’d say it’s very unnerving. However he still tries to fit all of him on top of you for a nap on your lap and you just can’t be afraid of him.

You are worried for him and possibly also for yourself when agent Tseng himself comes to pick him up for the final evaluation.  
Well to be honest, you are absolutely terrified.

  
“you’re doing better than I thought you would” Kunsel sits down next to you and hands you something to drink. you had opted to just sit in the cafeteria on floor three where colleague’s and regular civilians mingle. The background noise of everyone else talking used to help you relax, but not this time.

“thank you Kuns, your words of faith really soothe my soul” you take a sip, “… is there alcohol in this?”

he snorts, “no, I wouldn’t go that far”

you let out a deep breathe, “makes sense” then you groan, “I’m so stressed, I’m not made for this”

Kunsel gives you a couple pats on the back before making an attempt at distracting you from the moment, “once this is over, you think you’ll just go back to your old job?”

“well, I hope I get that reward and the raise, but that’s all up to my buddy. Then, yeah, I think they’ll give me my old job back, maybe I’ll be promoted to work directly for someone higher up, I wouldn’t mind working for director Tuesti”

“urban development has its funding cut again though, I doubt you’ll get put there if they’re giving you a raise. No maybe instead you’ll be added to the president Shinra’s secretarial team”

you recoil, “no, goddess no Kunsel, the guy is sexist I don’t want that” 

Kunsel grins, “what makes you say that?”

“well for starters, there are no women in the military police or in SOLDIER and-” you whisper, “I hear he’s a bit of a slut because he has a bunch of bastards everywhere? I don’t want him hitting on me, I don’t think I can file a complaint about sexual harassment when it comes to the goddamn president”

Kunsel laughs, “I’m not going to verify any of that”

you pout, “sometimes you are a lousy gossip Kuns” you have a small smile on your face, your friend actually managed to get you to relax a little.

  
During that conversation you have with Kunsel, Rufus meets Darkstar for the first time and he wonders, "how is it that a secretary from Shinra's general management on the lower floors is a better guard dog trainer than our professional specialists in the field?" 

to which Tseng responds with, "the young miss comes from a family of animal trainers and veterinarians" 

"hmm interesting" and by that point Rufus has already made his decision,

your dog is by far the biggest, strongest, best trained and possibly overall smartest of the small group that's still left.

"she'll have to continue being Darkstar's trainer, I won't accept any less now that it's obvious the other trainers from the R&D and military departments are incompetent" he huffs, yet another thing he'll have to fix once he's finally president.

"very well sir"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have stuff pre prepped and I have a clear idea of where I want to take this however despite all this I am afraid that I am a slow updater.  
> I will finish this however! I have a pretty good track record going of finished fics and I plan to keep that up ;p
> 
> Ah and I guess this is a good place to tell the world that I haven’t played a single Final Fantasy game and all my knowledge comes from other fanfics, the wikia, Vinesauce’s playthrough of the game and everything I find on Twitter.


	2. Chapter 2

Receiving the results of the final evaluation left you speechless.  
Darkstar, that’s his name now.  
And he’s going to guard one Rufus Shinra.  
You nearly freaked out when you learned.

But now you could finally use a proper name when you say your final teary goodbye.

Or so you thought, because if you think Rufus Shinra is going to walk his new guard dog you’re painfully mistaken. You’re probably the world’s most expensive dog walker, with your shiny new raise and all that.

How did this become your life again? Well, according to this new agreement, the VP won’t tolerate any slack on his dog’s abilities, and seeing as you did the best job out of the bunch, he’s going to have you keep doing that.  
The pros far outweigh the cons of this new arrangement. With the pros mostly being the amount of numbers on your new salary, and being able to keep interacting with your pup, Darkstar. Is he still your pup? Technically he was never your pup… but fuck it, you raised the dog, he’s yours too.

So from here on out, you are Darkstar’s full time trainer and keeper. Unless he’s with the vice president. Then you spend your time doing your old duties, or in some cases they have you aid in the training of the regular guard dogs.

It makes your workdays pretty damn irregular because the VP has to have his dog at some very odd hours.

It’s been a couple weeks now, and you’re on your way up to a ridiculously high floor, the elevator has a spectacular view of Midgar, it’s smooth and silent, and you would fall asleep on your feet if it wasn’t for Darkstar pattering around your feet, because it’s 3 am, and you’re tired.

Needless to say, you aren’t very focused on the view of the city at night, instead you’re cussing out the vice president in your head. What is he even doing that he needs Darkstar at 3 in the middle of the night!? He’s supposed to be sleeping, you are supposed to be sleeping!

The elevator stops briefly on a floor you don’t bother to note and it takes you a moment to process the fact that someone entered the thing with you. You do notice that Darkstar instantly takes his professional and protective stance next to you. The perfect image of a well behaved guard dog.

Glancing over reveals that the other person is a department head. But it’s a good night, because it’s the only department head that doesn’t make your skin crawl.

“good night, director Tuesti, sir”

“good night, miss- oh?”

You look over properly and see that his attention is on Darkstar.

“anything wrong sir?”

“no, Darkstar is friendlier when he’s with you” he says, and then promptly puts his foot in his mouth, "Not that- I mean- darkstar is a delight, very well trained! Which you wouldn't expect- that is- I always expected his trainer to be-" vague gesture, "but you're-" vague gesture in your direction.

You raise an eyebrow while you say, “are you alright sir Tuesti? Pardon me but you seem stressed, sir”

He winces, “my apologies”

"It's alright, if it makes you feel any better you're not the first sir"

"Ah"

Brief silence.

"Not big on dogs then?"

"No it's- well, I guess you could say I'm more of a cat person myself" 

"Oh, do you own a cat, sir?"

And internally he struggles a little because Cait Sith doesn't really count right?

"No, sadly not, too busy" 

"That makes sense, with my previous duties I wasn't able to keep a pet either. Though darkstar is hardly my pet" the dogs happy attention is on you completely at the mention of his name and you give him a couple firm pats on the head

"Yes I was wondering, how did you get this job exactly, just curious" 

"Hmm, sometimes I'm not even sure myself"

The elevator stops at a grand expansive hallway, there is a statue, fountains, what you think must be marble flooring with fancy carpet. Elegant stairs that sweep up to a higher balcony. The size and extravagance of the place makes you a little dizzy, and you just can’t help but feel as if you don’t belong and stick out like a sore thumb.

At least you can look as if you know what you’re doing because at this point you have the directions memorized, and it seems the director is heading the same way tonight.

And once at the vice president’s office the whole exchange feels like dropping off some important documents. However instead of documents it’s Darkstar.  
And you figured that would be all as usual but it seems Rufus has decided to ignore Reeve for a moment so he could ask you something regarding his guard dog.

“how are the non-verbal commands coming along?”

“Darkstar has memorized nearly all of the non-verbal commands that you requested mr. vice president. We still have to work on the article search command, but I am certain he’ll understand perfectly after a couple more days of training, sir”

With a flick of his wrist Darkstar smoothly moves from your side to his, and takes on a far more aggressive stance. Reeve unhappily notes the complete one eighty in the dog’s behavior, especially when he can hear the low low growling that he’s become familiar with the moment he takes a single step forward.

“very well, that’s all” Rufus says in a tone that makes your dismissal clear.

Your parents really pushed in the ‘be polite’ lessons, so on autopilot you find yourself saying “have a good night mr. vice president” turning to the director of urban development, “you as well director Tuesti” and then turning and leaving.

The “ah yes, you as well miss” you get in response lightens up your mood a bit, sadly you miss the unimpressed look the VP shoots at the director.

  
The next day Kunsel leans against your desk and hands you a coffee, “rumor has it you’re seeing the vice pres” 

You huff, “he had me bring him Dstar at 3am give me a break”

Kunsel’s smirk fades, “ah, that’s rough”

“Darkstar and the money is worth it, so far, I mean it’s only been a couple weeks, ask me again after a couple months” 

“you lucky bitch” says a new voice all of a sudden, the two of you look up, you in genuine surprise and Kunsel with an offended look in his eyes.

However, you already know this particular tone, it’s not meant maliciously, these girls know you’re among the ‘more professional’ group of employees, aka, whatever you’ve done now, you didn’t do it on purpose.

“please elaborate,” you deadpan.

One of them eagerly pipes up, “you had a conversation with director Tuesti, in the elevator, just the two of you, I am so jealous”

You pointedly take a long sip from your coffee because hoo boy, “I would have switched with any of you guys, having to be awake at 3 in the middle of the night is not fun”

“can you at least give us something, anything at all?”

“uhm…” you like gossip, but you’re more used to hearing it than sharing it, however, now you’re in this new position and you fear that situations like these are going to happen more often, “director Tuesti told me he’s a cat person, but he doesn’t have one, cause he’s too busy, which makes sense-”

The other women have stopped listening, “a soft spot for animals!” “that’s so sweet!” “imagine him with a bunch of kittens, I’m going to scream” 

Kunsel hides a snicker in his own cup of coffee.

“don’t you have somewhere you need to be? SOLDIER?” you ask him

“hm? Yeah I guess” he sighs, you’ve always had the idea that he seems strangely reluctant to do his job sometimes.

“hey, Kuns, one more thing now that you’re still here, I was wondering if you could help me out”

“a favor? Careful with those”

“stop it, we’re friends and friends help each other out, also I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy this favor too. You see I’ve been doing vehicle acclimatization training with Darkstar, but I haven’t yet had the opportunity to train him with staying put in a motorcycle sidecar, mostly because I need to be present with him and I can’t ride a motorcycle, so I was wondering if you’d be willing to do the driving bit for me”

He hums for a moment, and then agrees, “sure, that sounds far less tedious as some of the other things I’m supposed to be doing”

Kunsel goddamit, you’re a first class, act a bit more like it sometimes would you, you think.

But at the same time, “I’ll try to have it filed as a mission for you, but I’m not making any promises”

He lights up considerably, and you already know why. if he can fill his mission quota with things like this, he can spend more time at Shinra HQ without it being an issue. You sure wish you knew why exactly he wants to stay here as much as possible. The other SOLDIERS don’t nearly seem to mind being send out as much as he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> xp
> 
> comments and kudos are always appreciated


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> early update I guess

It has been another couple days and further combat training with Darkstar to keep him sharp is starting to become routine. This is not a good thing because real battles are nothing but routine. So it pains you to admit, but you’ll have to step up your game.

And so you find yourself at the weaponry division equipment distribution centre.   
You have been here before, during the period of mandatory Shinra employee gun handling training course. It had been a bit of a farce, you are pretty certain you’ve forgotten all the things you were taught those days, and the exciting bit had been the actual shooting, at a stationary target, couple meters away.   
It had been started to protect Shinra’s employees from being defenseless during an terrorist situation of sorts. Happened after a particularly out there AVALANCHE attack. Kunsel told you it was mostly just so certain vocal people would shut up already.

You’re sure the people here can instantly tell you’re out of place. Sure you’re wearing the usual blue grey suit jacket and knee length pencil skirt combo with an off white button down underneath, like most of the women here. But you just have the air of average secretary, it’s basically written all over your face.

There is one thing that really helps you right now though.

The guy at the service desk glances down a lot at Darkstar besides you, “what do you uh-” he coughs, “how may I help you, miss?”

“I need a weapon, and I think the most cost effective and overall efficient would be a whip”

He seems to finally get a grip on himself now, “a… whip, for what purposes exactly?”

“training, advanced evasive maneuvers, I cannot rely on simulations and I refuse to request the aid of the public security divisions”

“I see,” he doesn’t see, he gets why one wouldn’t ask for SOLDIER or Turk aid with this particular matter but the military police has guard dogs… shouldn’t they be able to…? 

Well it must be written on his face because the next thing you say is, “the guard dogs of the military police are far inferior compared to this one, he needs to be challenged, he needs to improve, Shinra doesn’t have SOLDIERS train with non-enhanced trooper cadets either now do they?”

“no! no they don’t haha” good lord, “well ma’am I will personally see to it that you receive the requisitioned equipment as soon as possible”

Ma’am? Did you overdo it? Where did that come from? Oh wait… you glance down at Darkstar who is snarling at the guy. VP guard dog right next to you, of course.  
All of a sudden you want nothing else but to get away from there, so you quickly fill the mandatory forms and leave. The company and its hierarchy shenanigans can be so exhausting. Even when it’s working in your favor.

  
You carefully put your second, much more lethal whip in your duffel bag, you hadn’t known that the weapon division was making it, but today you received a message on your PHS that it was ready for pickup, so you came, because yay free shit.

Darkstar next to you is snarling at the poor guy behind the desk, he’s been doing this more lately, you’re certain it’s Rufus’ doing. You’re also pretty sure he’s been spoiling your dog and you’ve been building up courage to either tell him to stop doing it, or to at the very least stop spoiling the dog with people food. Darkstar might be a mako enhanced canine murder beast, that doesn’t mean it’s ok to give him cake.

“alright let’s go” you say to your pup and Darkstar instantly goes from threatening to a more neutral look, diligently walking besides you on the right side, exactly as you taught him. “very good” you murmur, and receive an indulgent tail wag in return.

Besides the new whip addition in your duffel, you also carry your average training whip with you, and your preferred set of training clothes. These have all become dearly coveted items now that Darkstar has finally completely grown and will most likely not get any bigger, and you’ve moved onto combat training that actually involves you doing combat.

If anyone had told you a year ago that you’d eventually be training to harm and potentially kill another living being you would have called them insane. It wouldn’t have even been a funny joke, you’d straight up would have thought them mad.

But here you are.

This training is very important however. Darkstar needs to learn how to fight in sync with the one he’s protecting. It could end horribly if your pup and the VP got in the way of each other if the man got attacked. 

You’re heading to your favorite training areas seeing as today is a full training day, unless the vice president has sudden unexpected new plans…   
And this time you’ve decided not to notify Kunsel to see if he’ll humor you in a ‘spar’ because last time Luxiere and Roche showed up too and it was embarrassing.   
Today is going to be a day of new experiences, you’re confident enough in your amateur whip abilities that you won’t harm either yourself or your dog unintentionally.

well… your new whip has materia slots, and Kunsel taught you how to use materia, and you have this unmastered wind materia that you’ve picked purely because you figured it would be less ‘explosive’ than say, thunder or fire materia. So… there is a chance you might rip something apart by accident.

But psh, it’s an unmastered wind materia, how much damage could it do? You and your pup will be just fine. 

Needless to say, that was not the case. Though it was true that level one wind magic could not rip walls apart, it did appear to be capable of making a mess of nearly legendary proportions.   
At the very least it made for good item retrieval training for Darkstar. And the pup had a lot easier time dragging heavy things around than you did.

After that you decide to go to a more materia proof place for further training. “I really should have known, these regular spaces aren’t made for materia” Darkstar huffs in response, and gets a rub over his head in return.  
“all of the really materia proof ones are in the military wings and floors of this place…” you don’t have access to those, unless you hitch along with Kunsel.  
“…however-” there is a shiny new combat simulator all the way up on floor 63, which you do have access to for VP guard dog trainer reasons. “alright let’s go. elevator” Darkstar quickly heads for the elevator panel and smushes his nose against it, calling it down for you. And you spend your time waiting for it by praising him for it.

This high up the floors tend to be pretty damn empty, especially during certain hours of the day. Not to mention that the simulation room is kind of tucked away… for now.

In there you find you can finally properly train with your new whip, practicing serpent strikes and twin cobra attacks. You find that your whip is actually very compatible with wind materia, which probably also explains why you made such a mess a couple hours ago.

But training in the simulation room comes with ‘other’ problems namely the fact that at the moment you stand frozen as the sim throws an AVALANCHE insurgent at you. Darkstar is quick to do the job for you, protecting you as he’s supposed to, and brutally murdering the simulated enemy. But even as you watch the image shatter and dissipate you shiver and think about how very different this is from having Darkstar deal with monsters.

People… you’ve really moved onto killing people now.  
Fake people perhaps, but real looking enough.

After that you take a short break, pretending very hard you’re just doing it for MP reasons. After that you steel yourself and go in hard with a full on “it’s either me or them” mentality.  
And also even if you can’t die in this place those attacks really hurt.

Unbeknownst to you, someone has entered the observation room after you’ve spend another 40 minutes training.

Rufus had decided to change his plans and wanted to drop in unexpectedly, people always behave so differently when they think they aren’t being watched and then are caught unaware. And now there is also the added convenience of you being up on the higher floors and he doesn’t really have to go out of his way to do it.

He hadn’t really expected this though, it is certainly interesting.  
From the start of you training Darkstar, you had proven to be full of surprises, and Rufus was certain that by now he was using the unexpected stroke of luck to its fullest. But he’s starting to rethink that now.   
Perhaps you’d do well as a Turk, it certainly looks like you know how to handle yourself, and with a pleased smirk on his face he takes a moment to imagine it. Food for thought for later perhaps, seeing as he didn’t really need more Turks at the moment. And just because you know how to fight doesn’t mean you’re good at keeping secrets.

But then in the training room you remove your coat and you wipe away some sweat, ordering Darkstar to bring the coat to the side of the room. You stretch as a new enemy loads in. and from that point the only thing Rufus can look at is your body.

Turns out you weren’t wearing a long sleeved sport shirt under that coat, but instead some sort of open back halter top and compression sleeves, your shoulders and back are on full display and Rufus greedily looks. Your cargo pants and sturdy boots hide your legs but for some reason having those hidden only adds to the look.   
He swallows, then frowns, perhaps it’s a good idea to leave now, he has… better things to do.  
He spends another ten minutes looking before briskly leaving the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah there was no way in hell that you weren't going to learn how to kill at some point.  
> at least you look like a badass while doing it right?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh man, big update!

Something has changed and you’re not sure what caused it but whenever you bring Darkstar to the Vice President now he suddenly seems to pay a lot more attention than you’re used to.  
It made you realize two things; one, you absolutely had zero of his attention before, he used to either be on the phone, behind his computer, talking to a turk, or only paying attention to Darkstar. And two, having his full attention is actually kind of terrifying.

But though you don’t know why, you are pleased that he finally seems to somewhat listen when you ask him to feed darkstar ‘less’ food actually meant for people, even if he seems to enjoy asking what Darkstar is ‘allowed to have’ by your ‘expert opinion’ with his usual smug smirk on his face.

You’re not entirely sure if he’s taking you seriously, but you answer each of his questions seriously anyway, and if he actually takes your advice into account then that would only be a positive thing.

“dogs are allowed to eat peanut butter, correct?”

“well, yes sir, however only in moderation. And absolutely not any kind that has Xylitol in it, as that is toxic for them”

He pats Darkstar on the back, “surely this one can handle such a thing”

“I wouldn’t risk it… sir” you add belatedly.

And he lets out a huff that you can only describe as oddly… fond sounding? But he dismisses you afterward and you spend the elevator ride down pushing it from your mind.

After a bit the elevator stops and opens its doors for the upper floors grand entrance area, only… nobody is there?  
You’re wondering why the elevator stopped seeing as you didn’t press the button for this floor when you catch a small black shadow dash away at the corner of your eye.

As you raise your hand to your mouth to sharply whistle you remember that you just left Darkstar with the Vice president, you relax your stance and frown as the elevator doors close again, forcing you to let it go. Perhaps that’s for the better anyway.

Then you reach the floor where you’ll have to switch elevators, going from the fancy glass one to the regular one, it’s there that you quickly move aside as to not get stepped on by Director Scarlet, and it’s only when she’s gone that you relax again. You bitterly remember that you used to look up to her, being the only woman in what you saw as a den of male lions, but you know a bit better now. 

Especially after the time where she attempted to dump a bunch of paperwork on you, calling you daft as you didn’t instantly respond to her wishes and took the stack of papers from her.  
But then at the last moment she noticed Darkstar and then had gotten this pinched look that made it seem as if you had just tremendously inconvenienced her.

But today you’re not going to dwell on any of that because for today you’re done with your work.   
You head outside, grab the first taxi you see, and head to sector 7 because today you’re going to visit your parents. 

“Darkstar isn’t with you?” your mother asks you and hands you something to drink.  
you’re at their veterinary, seeing as it’s in the middle of the day and they are both on duty.

“no, he’s with the vice president right now, at work”

Your mother smiles at you, proud. From the start she was enthusiastic about this new job you got, with your father stating that working with animals is in your blood, and her eventually being so happy for you that all along you were training the guard dog for the vice president of Shinra.

Your family is pretty pro Shinra, especially your aunt, which you don’t talk much with anymore because she’s really weird about it.

Personally you’ve been getting more and more of a neutral stance on things. Some in your family ask you how things are like so high up in the tower, and you can’t really talk about any of that stuff because of the whole confidentiality thing, but also… you don’t really want to, like seriously what can you even say? director Scarlet is a bitch, director Palmer is a creep, director Heidegger is an asshole, you haven’t even seen professor Hojo and judging by Kunsel’s warnings you should be grateful for that, the only Director who has been polite and pleasant so far is director Tuesti. And you guess the Vice president himself seems to finally be warming up to you a bit. 

However, there are some things you can talk about, “has Ami visited? For her cat”

“hm, remind me of her last name”

“Estelwen”

“oh, yes, her cat is pregnant”

You almost slam your hand on the table in victory, “that’s what I told her! Ha, but she was all like, no, my little princess is obese and dying, and then I said, well have you visited a professional for it? But she was convinced that getting her cat some kind of wutaian needle treatment in wallmarket would solve everything”

“in that case I am glad you convinced her to visit us”

“yes well, it’s more that I made a bet on it with her” you take out your PHS and send a message over to her that’s basically “I was right, pay up” you turn back to your mother, “money is a stronger motivator up… no wait, I mean, with some people, they are more likely to do what you want when you frame it in such a way that they think they can win”

Your mother looks surprised, “things are a lot tougher up there aren’t they?”

You sigh and take a long drink, “it’s fine”

  
The next day was supposed to be a peaceful day, filled with some files you needed to fill in about Darkstar’s development and further needs, he has better health care than some of your colleagues. and once you were done with that you had been assigned to aid the military police guard dog handlers with their dog training, going further in depth about your training regimen for Darkstar.   
These men had been reluctant to accept you and your advice at first but Darkstar himself is a great motivator to make people listen and by this point they have had to begrudgingly accept your advice, so you weren’t feeling too bad about going there today without your pup accompanying you.

however, you were busy personally delivering some of the files you had filled in that morning when you heard a ‘very’ familiar stepping noise behind you, accompanied with the slight clicking of nails on shiny marble like floors. At first you thought you were imagining things because surely it wasn’t… but it was.

Darkstar patiently sat down to attention awaiting his commands behind you, also presenting you with a swath of pristine white cloth being held carefully in his jaws, or is that leather? It’s white, and expensive looking.

For a couple seconds you just stand there staring at him, then you nearly pull a muscle in your neck looking around to find the vice president.

Where is he? Is this some kind of joke? A test perhaps? Darkstar was supposed to be with him for about a week, him being on some kind of business trip to Junon and- did Darkstar abandon his post!? In an attempt to calm down and make sense of the situation you try to focus on one thing first. That ends up being the swath of white in Darkstar’s mouth.

“give me that” you hold out your hands, Darkstar gently deposits the white bundle in your care, you spread it out, you notice sleeves, you’re holding it upside down, you shift it in until the shape fully makes sense, it’s a coat, it’s a very familiar coat, you’re attempt at calming down fails and you’re starting to panic.

You’re getting a bit more of a grip on yourself when you notice a guy looking at you funny from further down a hallway, you realize you’ve kinda just been muttering shit under your breath for a bit now while looking at the coat and at your dog.

“okay yes, I need… to think, come” Darkstar stands up and follows you to the nearest empty meeting room you can lock, slapping the panel inside to make it say occupied on the outside, if someone scheduled to use this room today while you’re in it then that’s too bad for them, you have higher clearance.

You stare at the coat while trying to make sense of the situation, the first thing you manage to properly process is that the coat is really soft actually, like damn, you’d like one of these, but not in white because you’ll stain it and you’re not stupid rich unlike some people. Then reality catches up again and you get to work.

So first, Darkstar came to you, which is good, after seemingly abandoning the vice president, which is really really bad, however it makes no sense… because he’s never ever done anything like that before, not even tried to, so force some optimism and figure he either got send to you, which also doesn’t make much sense because you’d have been notified of that at least, or this is a test, you are going to go with the test theory for now.

So you have Darkstar and his coat, so clearly what you have to do now is find him, only, he’s on a business trip right? But maybe not, probably not because that would mean he left without his dog and his coat… though he probably has more than one coat.

But now you have a plan, find Rufus Shinra!

This proves to be harder than you thought…

You have a lot of connections, your old job as a secretary demanded you knew people all over the tower, however most of those connections are on the lower floors, and they don’t know what the higher ups are doing most (if not all) of the time, so you stick with contacting the ones you figure have a chance of knowing, but that also doesn’t work out so well because they either tell you they can’t say anything, or they still don’t know, despite being up a lot higher.

You honestly should have asked him from the start but whatever, “Kunsel I need your help,” you’ve called him on your PHS, in the end not bothering to look for him on the SOLDIER levels, the sooner you get this over with the better.

“you need to find vice pres?”

“yes”

There is a moment of silence before he asks, “not going to ask me how I know that?”

“Kuns, you know everything and the rumor mill in this building is so fast, you probably know because someone saw Darkstar heading in my direction and used your deducement powers or something”

“no it’s the coat you have that gave it away, about that, you think I could take a look at that in exchange for info?”

“no! … why?”

“there are a couple bets about it you know”

“Kunsel, just tell me already so I can fix this situation” you sound stressed and exasperated.

“you can’t. he and a bunch of others went to Junon by Helicopter”

You’re quiet before sputtering, “are you serious!”

“yes I am certain there must have been some kind of accident or a miscommunication and you’re in the clear, if you want to be one hundred percent certain I’d suggest going over to the Turk department and ask Tseng, but before you do that I’d like to propose a compromise”

“shoot” 

“you hop on over here first and show me the parts of the coat I need to know about for the bets first and we’re even”

“why should I do that before being sure I’m not in huge trouble”

Kunsel sighs, “because there is a chance Tseng will take the thing from you, c’mon I promise it won’t take long”

You stay silent just to be a little shit before saying “fine” and heading up to the SOLDIER floors. You refuse to let your friend touch the coat but you are thorough and helpful in giving him the info about it that he wants.

Then you head for the Turk office,

“agent Tseng?” you say with a bit of an uncertain undertone in your voice. You see him a lot nowadays but you never talk and at this point you’re in a bit of a limbo on how to address him.

“hm?” he looks up, sees the dog and the coat, “… no” 

A quick back and forth reveals that someone has in fact made a mistake and your pup got left behind on the helipad, but being a smart big boy he managed to handle himself and find his other master just fine.  
The case of the coat is a bit of a mystery however seeing as Rufus didn’t seem to be missing it.

“I’ll look after these” you tell him after hearing him let out a sigh. It’s odd, the man is always so stone faced and put together and all that that you can’t help but want to help at least a little bit in this unexpected new shinra fuck up situation.

He taps his finger on the desk for a moment before nodding, “that would be appreciated, be careful with his coat”

“of course” you take the opportunity to properly fold the damn thing on the massive desk/table thing they have in the middle of their office, “no need to worry, I’ll return it to the vice president when he’s returned from his trip to Junon” 

The line between his brows seems to smoothen out a bit and he returns to his computer screens, you take that as your que to leave.

Outside you look at the carefully folded bundle in your arms and ponder where to safely keep it.

It ends up forcefully shoved in your duffel bag as you rush to be on time at the dog handler training room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> work is killing me...  
> if your work is killing you then kudos this fic X'D or leave a comment!


	5. Chapter 5

It’s during a break where you help yourself to some water and heap copious amounts of praise onto Darkstar for being so much better than any of these other dogs, that Kunsel’s helmeted head pops in and finds you.

He sits down beside you on the bench, “and?”

“don’t be like that”

“like what?”

“like you don’t already know”

He grins, “well, in that case, I guess that means all’s well that ends well” he tries to steal your water bottle which you quickly hold out of reach, Darkstar snaps at his gloved outstretched hand and he swiftly recoils, “jeesh. Oh, that does remind me. There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you”

You shoot him a curious look.

“not here though, your place preferably” 

You lift an eyebrow, “oookay, fine with me, that way if I end up not liking whatever it is I can just kick you out”

“so harsh”

“this place is so nice” Kunsel says as he flops down on your couch, the oversized hood of his hoodie going over his eyes and it is almost as if he didn’t take his helmet off, “I can’t really complain about the apartments Shinra hands out to their first class SOLDIERS but something about living in the tower makes it hard for me to properly relax you know” 

You whack him with a rolled up newspaper before throwing it away, “you do realize that with your first class pay you can easily afford a place outside of the tower?”

He turns a little in your direction, “why would I do that when you have a perfectly comfy couch right here”

You groan while he grins at you.

“alright,” you watch as Darkstar trots over to your quilt covered loveseat and flops down in it, letting out a big huff when he’s settled, “would you like something to drink before you confess your undying love to me?”

“it’s not that, but yeah I do,” he doesn’t move a single inch

You throw a beer at him, hitting him in the shoulder, “move your ass”

He lets out an exaggerated sigh while finally moving to sit properly giving you room to sit on the other side with your own beer.

“I already knew you weren’t going to do that, you’re too hung up about your old SOLDIER buddy to even consider anyone else”

He takes a long drink from his beer in response and you wince, but at the same time you think “c’mon man, it’s been like four years, even longer than that probably…” you murmur a sorry anyway.

“it’s fine” he softly knocks your knee with his fist, “but I guess it does have something to do with what I wanted to talk about, so here goes, you know how we’re talking a lot more now than before?”

“yeah I guess,” you smile, “you’re a great friend Kuns” he doesn’t return it, instead he rubs the back of his neck.

“yes, I want to preface this by saying that you’re a very valuable friend to me too” he takes a breath and you frown, “but I have to admit that I only really started this because I wanted, or simply just hoped I could get more info through you, with you being pretty high up now and all that. The same goes for my own promotion actually” 

There was a pang of hurt going through you but the last sentence catches you off guard, “wait… what?”

“the reason I accepted becoming a first. I was fine being a second, I went mostly unnoticed which is great for when you want to know things but don’t want to get caught. But being a first gets you in more places. Which is why I accepted the promotion”

He lets the hood slip down and his intense glowing eyes look directly at you, “you’re high up too now, you’re casually talking with the vice president sometimes, so… ” he looks away, “but recently I’ve started feeling kinda guilty about it all and I figured I’d be one hell of shitty friend if I didn’t just come clean, and hope for the best.”

You give him a kick in the side with your socked feet that’s nowhere near hard enough to even remotely hurt him, he dramatically flops away from you anyway. It causes Darkstar to look up sharply before settling down again.

“you’re right, and it does make you a bit of a shitty friend” you sip from your beer, “but I also know how invested you are in the Nibelheim tragedy” you look at him sharply, “no more dumbass manipulative behavior and lies, and you buy me the expensive Wutaian food, and I will let it slide, this time.”

Kunsel smiles brightly, “you got it”

“I mean it though, becoming friends with someone just to get something you want out of it is Shinra executive behavior and you were raised better than that”

Kunsel uses his PHS to stream a funny video he found on Moogletube on your TV, “I’m not going to do it anymore, this situation was the worst” 

“you don’t have to anymore either, you can now properly ask me to do stuff for you”

“I wasn’t going to! Well, I am planning on asking you if you’ve overheard anything interesting”

“you already do that”

“well alright then, you know what? here” he fishes in his pockets for a flashdrive and hands it over, “if you ever find yourself with access to an interesting looking pc stick this in there for me”

“spyware, how classy” you stick the flashdrive in your pocket, “I doubt I will take the risk but I will hold on to this, you never know” 

Kunsel laughs in response. And for a while things are good again, and then, “is that a Darkstar plushie?” 

“oh!” you sharply look over at your dresser, that proudly displays a lovingly made handcrafted overly cute somewhat fat version of your pup, “yeah I kind of stumbled upon a person who makes them on a forum”

“that’s amazing”

“yeah,” you beam at him, “I love it a lot so I just had to have one”   
You pointedly do not tell him about the accompanying vice president Rufus Shinra plush that you hid away in your bedroom. The artist had only sold them in pairs, and though you had bought a pair simply for the Darkstar one you have admitted to yourself that you love the vice president one from the moment the package had arrived and you held them in your hands.

It was a bit hard to suddenly change your schedule around to make room for the usual Darkstar stuff until you realized that your position gave you the power to just say “something more important came up and things are different now” and that would just be accepted.

It worked best when you were short, assertive and didn’t apologize for anything.

You did feel bad afterwards and decided to relieve some stress by hitting things, you don’t like the part where the thing you were hitting very painfully hit you back though.

“it’s already dead Darkstar, come over here, I’m fine” you cradled your left arm to your chest, the enemy Coeurl had gotten a good hit in and you had a bit of a gash at the moment. “I just need a moment to catch my breath, then I’ll cure it” you can hear a bit more growling before you look up to see Darkstar make his way back to you.

He nudges your arm, “it’s not that bad, it looks bad, and it hurts a lot, but it’s not deep” you’re not entirely sure why you’re saying all that, it’s not like Darkstar can understand all that.

Then Darkstar heads over to the spot where you safely keep your duffel bag, and he fishes out your spare cure, “wait, that’s not necessary” you had your own mastered cure in your bracer after all. 

He nudges you again with the materia in his mouth, “yes, thank you Darkstar, just give me a moment”

But your pup whimpers and then suddenly a green sparkling light washes over you and concentrates on your left arm, you stare at the wound that’s quickly closing and exclaim, “did you just use a cure on me!?”

Darkstar tilts his head at you as if to say, “yes, what of it?” 

And next thing you know you’re at the requisitions office to place an order for a guard dog collar with materia slots.

The next day you retrieve the collar and you put the cure from the other day in it, start with that.   
You once again are very grateful that your pup is so smart. It does not take long for him to understand what to do when you pretend to be in pain.

After that you tie a command to it. The two of you keep it up until you notice the cures getting significantly less powerful, and then you take a break, run a couple rounds with him instead.

You wonder if Darkstar could drink an ether, but you don’t really want to risk it, what if he reacts badly to it…  
You can’t really ask your parents for advice either, you’ve never even heard of an animal using materia, the thought fills you with a sense of pride. Your pup really is something else.

It’s when you put an offensive materia in the collar that you have a bit of a problem. And you’re grateful it’s a level one lightning materia, and not your mastered wind materia.  
You shiver through the aftershocks crouched on the ground for a moment after getting hit, “m-m-m-m-maybe should ha-h-have th-thought that th-through a l-l-little more”  
It seems Darkstar has gotten a little too used to casting things on you, you’ll have to teach him to cast on other targets as well.

the pain fades faster when Darkstar pushes into your space, you wrap an arm around his neck and he sniffles all over your face.

Soon you’re back on your feet and you have thought up a plan, first you’ll need some more magic defense so you fetch yourself a rune armlet and a level 2 barrier materia.  
You equip your materia, place a target on the ground and take out a bunch of treats catching Darkstar’s attention immediately. As you stand next to the target you cast manaward and call Darkstar to attention.

The times that you get hit with a thunder are still unpleasant, but bearable. Eventually Darkstar learns to hit the target instead and you move away from it, praising him and giving him a treat every time he hits the target.

You make wonderful progress in a single day.

You leave the training room and you’re planning to return all the equipment back to their designated places when you hear a metallic noise, when you sharply look up the wall you see a metal vent clicking back into place.

Not missing a beat you whistle sharply and Darkstar’s posture shifts to high alert, soon he’s dashing down the hallway and around the corner and you follow him as quickly as you can.

After two turns however you slow your pace suddenly when you see Darkstar growling up at director Tuesti, who is shifting somewhat nervously. You narrow your eyes and listen carefully, but you do not hear any odd noises anymore.

“Darkstar, heel” your dog stops growling and sits down next to you, “my apologies director, there was an odd sound and I had him chase it, there may be vermin in the vents”

Reeve swallows, “that’s troubling, I will have to look into that”

His eyes seem to have trouble staying on your face, it’s then that you remember you’re still wearing the sleeveless halter top and cargo pants workout outfit, “well, in that case I better get back to what I was doing, have a good day sir” and you hurriedly leave.

Jeez, that’s a little embarrassing.

Meanwhile Reeve let’s out a breath and checks his PHS, Cait Sith safely made it back to his office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hit 40 kudos with this fic! I've never had 40 kudos on a fic before!   
> I am very happy, and I am glad you all like this so far ^v^


	6. Chapter 6

The next three days are uneventful and spend mostly teaching Darkstar a cure command, and a thunder command so he can keep both materia equipped and he needs to pick which one to use based on the command that’s called out.

Curiously enough it seems that Darkstar has taken up a new habit of often howling when he’s casting.

By the third day Darkstar is capable of charging up your whip that you hold in your hand from a decent distance without electrocuting you.

You can’t help but murmur praise while scratching behind your pup’s ears, “Rufus is going to be so proud, yes he will be, cause you’re so smart, the smartest, yeah you are” causing Darkstar to have the dopiest dog smile.

It’s then that you receive a message from Kunsel on your PHS saying “vice president incoming” and you decide to quickly change and head for the upper floors, while in the elevator you receive a second message “apparently he’s a little irate” you wince, clutching your duffel bag a little closer, but when you look down at Darkstar you can help but think that maybe you’ll succeed in cheering him up.

You arrive at the floor where Rufus’ office is at and you can hear him outside as his voice is raised, the others on the floor are clearly uncomfortable, maybe one or two have been snapped at themselves.

“business trip didn’t go well?” you ask, but you get no response so you sigh and mentally prepare yourself to just enter the office and deal with it, whatever happens, happens.

You knock on the door before entering and a harsh “-handle it” is the last thing he snidely says into his PHS before hanging up and turning to you, saying, “I have no scheduled mee-” he looks, Darkstar is already trotting over, which seems to ease the tension in his shoulders somewhat you note. A good sign.

This is the thing you like the most about the vice president, how he interacts with Darkstar. Your father always told you that you can learn a lot about a person by watching how they treat their animals.

“I’ve come to notify you of Darkstar’s current status sir”

Rufus hums, “that could also have been done the usual way” aka by way of files and reports.

“yes sir, however there is one new development that I’m certain of is better told in person” you then open your duffel bag, “also I wished to return this” you take out his neatly folded coat and now he looks genuinely surprised. It’s a nice look on him, it makes him look a lot softer than the usual serious or smug looks that he has.

“how do you have that?”

“on the day of your departure, Darkstar found me and he inexplicably had this coat with him as well, I’ve been keeping it safe until I could return it” and you hand him the white bundle.

He looks it over, clean, and well kept, “I see, my thanks, and as for Darkstar?”

You give him a smile knowing for sure he’s going to like this, “I have discovered that Darkstar is capable of using materia mr vice president”

There is a pause and then, “he can?” 

“yes sir” you click your tongue which causes Darkstar’s attention to instantly snap back at you, “Darkstar, cure”

And with a howl a familiar green light washes over you.

You proudly turn back to Rufus, “he’s also capable of casting a thunder on an enemy target”

“or perhaps as a way to enhance my own weaponry” Rufus mutters, “you’ve done well, I’m impressed”

And you just can’t help how your chest seems to fill with with a warm fuzzy feeling with his praise.

You ride that high for the rest of the day, and you get a short thank you message from one of the other Shinra employees up there for improving the vice president’s mood.

It’s for that reason that during your late evening walk with Darkstar through the business district in sector 8 you decide to get yourself a little reward. And you can already see the person you’re looking for. 

“excuse me?” you politely ask to get her attention. 

“yes? How can I help you” she turns and for a split second you catch a look of surprise on her face.

“I’d like to buy some flowers” a nice bouquet of flowers really sounds like the perfect reward for yourself right now, you sure hope this young lady has no issue with Darkstar glaring at everyone coming within lunging distance. Though, at the same time you’re more busy thinking about how much this is probably going to cost. Flowers in Midgar are very expensive, but you have some money to burn now, you do hope it won’t cost much more than four hundred gil though.

Her smile lights up her entire face and overall she just radiates warmth, it’s kind of startling, but nice.   
She asks for the size and the colors and before you know it she hands you a decently sized bouquet with about twenty flowers.

“how much?” you’re already looking through your wallet, two one hundred coins in your hand, that’ll be the bare minimum, but you’re wondering if after that it’ll be more convenient to pull out a couple fifties or if just going with more one hundred coins is better.

“the price depends on the customer” she says, which strikes you as a little odd, but then again, she’s selling them on the street, mostly to the theatre goers who plan on giving them to the actors of the various plays. “I think a hundred gil is more than enough”

You’re probably gaping, at the very least you’re certain you’re giving her an incredulous stare because she has to be pulling your leg, “that can’t be right, these are beautiful” 

She makes a happy humming noise, “thank you” 

you look at her for another second or two before reaching out and pushing the two one hundred coins into her hand.

“oh, that’s too much”

“consider it a tip, for great service”

Now she’s giving you a somewhat odd look, tilting her head, which is more adorable on her than it has any right to be.   
Darkstar picks that moment to step forward to sniff at her dress, startling her.

“ah!” you click your tongue making him sharply look up at you, “Darkstar, heel” he obediently moves back to sit beside you again, “my apologies, I know he’s… intimidating, but I can assure you he won’t hurt a fly” unless you tell him to.

Her smile seems a bit less bright than before, “he’s a Shinra guard dog right? A bit bigger than the ones I usually see”

“yes, this one is special”

“hm, it is a bit odd to see a dog like this with someone like you,”

“it is?” you chuckle, “yeah I suppose, I train him but I know I don’t really look the part”

“oh! You’re his trainer, I thought he might be assigned to protect you or something”

“well that is his duty, so you are right in a sense” you hum, “I used to be just a secretary but Shinra works in mysterious ways sometimes” 

She gets a bit of a faraway look in her eyes, “that it does”

You suddenly get a great new idea, one that instantly makes you fidget, but now you feel like you have to pull through, you’ve gotten a lot more confident these last couple months, just asking shouldn’t be too big of a deal.

“hey, I was wondering, I would like to treat you to a drink over there, they have amazing hot beverages, and I just, well, I still really feel like I’m ripping you off, also you’re fun to talk to and… a friend of mine keeps telling me I need more friends, so…” you dissolve into more nervous fidgeting, this stuff is hard.

“sure, it’s a date” she cheerily says causing you to splutter which in turn just makes her to mischievously giggle tipping you off that she wasn’t serious.

And after some quick proper introductions you can say with utmost certainty that it is very nice to meet Aerith Gainsborough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really have much to add here other than the plot thickens.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot believe I have over 70 kudos now, that's crazy to me. I'm very happy and very thankful that so many people like my work

The day after meeting and starting a tentative friendship with Aerith you go all the way up to Rufus’ office as usual but this time when you go inside his usual smirk has more of a hint of a genuine smile to it.

“right on time” he says and pulls out a small slender box. Curious and taking that as a que to come you walk up to his desk. The contents turn out to be a neat row of identical silver colored coins.

“they are still in development, I want you to teach Darkstar a new command regarding these” he pushes the box in your direction and you take one out, one side has what look to be an elegant shield with a sword over it and the other side has what looks to be Darkstar on it with the lower part of his body covered in flowers, you can’t see any numbers or other text on it anywhere so you figure these coins aren’t actually some kind of new currency.

Rufus can’t help but be amused at the confused look you give him and decides to explain further, “these coins are made out of a new special materia infused alloy, this means they are capable of reacting in various useful ways when they come into contact with other volatile catalysts, such as heat, pressure and electric currents”

“oh! Like Darkstar casting thunder, it could react to that?” you look the coin over again and miss the look of approval Rufus gives you, glad that you seem to be picking up where he’s going with this.

He confirms your suspicion, “yes, that would work in theory, however working out the logistics of properly applying them together with D is something I’m not sure of yet”

You nod and pull out your notebook, quickly skipping over half of it to get to the empty pages and you then start brainstorming ideas with him. He’s once again very pleased with how easily you just go with it, such flexibility is something he greatly appreciates in the people that work for him. 

“seeing as these coins are still in development, you are not allowed to talk about them to anyone” 

You nod, “understood sir”  
You then flip the coin a couple times in your hand and move your thumb over the engravings, you note the empty space above the shield and figure that eventually text will be put there, it seems like the perfect spot for it.

overall you’re sure the shield with what looks like wings and the sword, plus the flowers all have their meaning but the thing you settle on is, “he’s absolutely lovely”

Which causes Rufus to look up sharply, “what?”

“Darkstar” you flip the coin to show the side with the dog and the flowers, “the details are amazing, it looks just like him” and you give him a bright smile.

For a moment he doesn’t know how to respond before he says, “yes, he’s a great mascot for this company”

And you make a noise of agreement and give the pup in question a fond and firm pat over the head, causing him to give you a curious head tilt.

Rufus clears his throat and taps with his pen on your notebook, “so, the verbal command will be coin, short and simple”

“yes, as that is easiest for him to remember” 

Rufus hums “make sure to throw the coins before giving the command, you do not want to hold them while he charges them”

“no I figured as much, up to how many do you wish for him to hit with a single command?”

“hmm” a taps a couple more times with his pen, “up to three, perhaps more, we’ll see how it goes” 

“very well sir, leave it to me” you write down the final worked out idea and then flip a bit back to the pages with the notes on training schedules to write it down and add a timestamp.  
You snap the little book shut and look up at him, “anything-” he’s looking right at you, in the eyes, seemingly absentmindedly spinning his pen in his hand now, “else, sir?” 

There is a moment of silence before he says, “no, that’s all for now” and turns to give his attention to Darkstar, it’s then you notice you’ve been somewhat holding your breath.

“alright sir, in that case I better get going” 

He hands you the box of coins, “have a good day” 

You take the box and pray to Gaia there is no redness spreading over your face right now, “you as well mr. vice president” 

And when you leave the office you feel his gaze burning into your back, but you convince yourself it’s your imagination, you absolutely utterly refuse to look back to check. And once outside you take a deep proper breath.  
Having Rufus Shinra’s undivided attention on you is really something else.

  
Despite that great start the rest of the day proved to be a test of restraint.  
You try to tune out the noise by counting in your head, hoping that the files you requested would be handed to you fast so you could finally be free of Director Palmer, who had seen you without Darkstar and had taken that as his que to walk right up and become this annoying droning presence.

He’s mostly boasting, going on about his department which you find odd because at the moment they aren’t really doing anything. And then moving on about himself. 

Wait is he coming on to you? Oh well now you seriously have to resist fidgeting and all of a sudden your very modest pencil skirt feels far too short, perhaps you should look into getting yourself a pantsuit. And for a hot second you’re seriously thinking about just blatantly wearing your weapon on your hip, but seeing as you use a whip it would probably be misconstrued… 

“ah but I can already tell that just hearing all about that is a tad boring, but I would be more than happy to show you in my office”

there is a white hot stab of panic racing down your spine. It screeches ABORT ABORT at you and you quickly start with a halting, “sir, I-” before both of you are surprised by an incessant messaging noise.

“my apologies” you murmur while quickly fetching your PHS, that is the tone you use for messages from the VP after all. 

It’s a curt order for you to return to his office, well now the panic is complete, did you forget something? You know you’re wincing.

“I have to leave, good day sir” you distractedly say before hurrying off.

you arrive at his office to find him sneering at one of his computer screens, it slides into his usual neutral with a hint of smug when he looks up however. And darkstar too has his happy body language going on when he sees you

"Sir?" You say 

"I would like your opinion on a couple things, come here"

And you move to comply but the next questions aren't what you'd say ‘urgent’ at all.  
Especially when one of the questions is what kind of color she prefers for a tie, which has him specifying that no, it’s not for him, he wants your opinion.  
You say maroon. 

After a while he’s done with the questions that you are sure must be part of some kind of test, and it’s only after he checks something on the monitor he keeps occasionally glaring at that you are allowed to leave.

The whole experience is just plain weird.

A week later you find a package on your desk, upon closer inspection you find the contents to be a dark maroon two piece pantsuit and a silky white blouse, everything about it screams expensive. The added note says something along the lines of “for your continued excellent performance”

The note looks like the standard one that tends to go with a tiny Shinra cake on an employee’s birthday. However the logo on the back of the card is shiny in the lamp light.  
With a sigh you tiredly think to yourself that even the tiny gift note cards are of a higher quality on the upper floors.

When you change back to office clothes after a training session with Darkstar you decide to try out your new gift. It’s when you fix the cuffs and look over in the changing room mirror that you realize that in all honesty these pants will do nothing to diminish the leering of certain individuals.

The pants and accompanying jacket are apparently tailored for your curves and rather than hiding they are mostly emphasizing your ‘assets’.

However, even when that is the case you find yourself refusing to take it off again, clothing this comfortable should be illegal.

After going about your usual day you confirm that yes, more people seem to be aware of you, most of those looks seem to be appreciative instead of straight up eye fucking you though.

And an unexpected upside turns out to be that people seem to give you more room now, as if you suddenly have a more authoritative air or something.

Beyond all that the thing you zeroed in the most was the genuine smile the vice president had when you dropped Darkstar off again.  
Yes, it turned the usual smug again soon after but for a couple seconds it was absolutely there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am running out of pre prepped chapters...  
> I like to plan ahead and already have stuff written so that I can keep up this weekly schedule I have going on but good lord the next chapter is kicking my ass.  
> or well... it's the chapter after the next chapter lmao.
> 
> I just gotta get my shit together and get it out there! I just hope that it'll be good for everybody once I'm finally done with it


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big chapter today.  
> it's probably also completely filled with things nobody saw coming.

You’re heading for the cafeteria on floor 63 when Kunsel catches up with you and matches your pace, “did you do something different with your makeup today?” he says, obviously joking.

“do these kinds of gifts happen often up here Kuns?” you ask in lieu of an answer.

“no, not really, they tend to just somehow manifest gil out of thin air with which they buy their own things”

You order some food and sit down with Kunsel casually joining you,  
“I wonder why me then…”

“well, rumour has it that the VP shows favoritism to the Turks ever since the whole ordeal with their department over seven years ago”

“what?”

“long story”

You sigh and tap the rim of your coffee cup, “I’m not a turk though…”

“no you really aren’t” and that earns him a frown, what does he mean by that? “however you do work directly for him which might be enough in his book”

You think for a moment and then sigh, “it is weird, and nice, but mostly weird”

Kunsel huffs out an amused sound but all of a sudden you’re distracted by a wet sounding plapping noise, it’s hard to describe and hard to hear, but the moment Kunsel notices you’re distracted he’s hearing it too and getting up.

You look around to see a couple elevator doors closing with seemingly no one having gotten in or out and when you look back at Kunsel he’s suddenly gone.

“wh- Kuns, where did you go?” 

Your question gets a soft croak in response and it’s the exact moment that you look at a mostly black with green accents and SOLDIER helmeted little frog that the entire cafeteria erupts into chaos.

You gingerly pick him up and he gladly perches on your shoulder, if the entire situation wasn’t so startling and messed up you would have cooed at his adorable tiny helmet, instead out loud you say “what the hell is going on!?” and you receive a response from Kunsel, sadly you don’t speak frog so it is completely useless.

You notice more frogs and toads and you decide to climb on top of something while pulling out your leather whip. You really wished you had your whip Steel Spine with you instead but that one is locked away safely, as regular employees aren’t allowed to carry weapons in the building.

Once you figure you’re somewhere relatively safe you pull out your PHS and do a quick search, you find a couple articles about Gongagan frogs called Touch Me but the added pictures don’t look like these frogs at all, the ones frogifying people here look… diseased.

Escaped from R&D then, great.

Well, the best thing to do is probably to just knock out as many of these experimented toads and not have them hit you with their frogifying ability, until security arrives and takes care of the situation. For a second you wish you could just flee with the others who aren’t transformed but you worry that the ones who are already frogs will get hurt by these messed up toad monsters, or worse…

It’s a chaotic mess of a fight, but the ones in the cafeteria have been dealt with and your outfit is surprisingly still immaculate, the next thing on your list is to fetch your materia and see if an Esuna will fix things. You choose to interpret Kunsel’s head bobbing as yes. 

The elevators are unresponsive, probably due to some panicky people so you are forced to take a couple stairs, and after that it’s in the next hallway that you come across two transformed people frogs and one apparently dead experimental toad.

One of them is mostly red and has tiny black goggles wrapped around his neck, the other is dark brown and seems to be wearing tiny sunglasses, it’s now that you also notice that every transformed frog has a off white coloured belly, it’s a nice contrast. Also, these two look vaguely familiar.

“Reno? Rude?” you question, and is quickly followed by a load croak from your shoulder. After that the red Reno frog sprawls out over the ground and the brown Rude frog tilts his head a little.

You grab them, “I’ll bring you two to the turk office and you can decide what to do from there on out” Reno doesn’t seem to like the idea and is fruitlessly struggling in your hold but Rude has just gone completely limp seemingly having accepted his fate.

It seems Tseng isn’t at the office much to Reno’s delight, the red frog hops away from you the moment you attempt to gently deposit the duo on the massive desk table.

He directs you to one of the many drawers, slapping it impatiently with his frog hand, when you open it it’s revealed it has a bunch of materia inside.

“you better not accuse me of snooping later” you pull out a part way mastered poison so you can get to the fully mastered cleanse.   
And then you cast Esuna on the two turks.

“there we go! Heh, you can keep that one as thanks” Reno gestures at the poison while fetching the cleanse from you, “Rude let’s go yo”

Looking over you can see Rude busy with not falling on his ass after nearly toppling from the desk, “yes, one moment”

He’s up and proper again in a second, pushing his sunglasses back, and then they both stride out of the room.

It’s when they already left that you realize you still have your own buddy on your shoulder, you wonder why he hasn’t made a noise of complaint when you look over and see him look at the many computers in the office, 

“no, c’mon let’s go” you hurry out of there and to fetch your own materia before Kunsel could get himself and by extension you in trouble.  
Before you leave you make sure to pocket the poison though, free materia is free materia.

You fetch your other materia and you fix Kunsel and you vaguely hear him mutter, “asshole took it and left on purpose” and you figure he must mean Reno. Then he gestures for you to follow him to the highest floors while he checks his PHS, his talent for not walking into anything while looking at the screen is unparalleled.

“okay so it seems that at this point the entire building is a chaotic mess and it’s being completely hidden from the rest of Midgar, to the surprise of no one”

“in that case, shouldn’t you meet up with the others from SOLDIER and aid in fixing this?” 

and he looks at you completely seriously and says, “I can’t, I’m a frog”

Which makes you short circuit for a hot second before hissing “Kunsel! We talked about this”

He ignores you as he says, “instead we’re going up to check on the directors, SOLDIER hasn’t gotten a direct order from Heidegger yet and that’s suspicious”

You end up being the one to lead Kunsel to the right board meeting room, with Kunsel looking around going, “why all of this?” 

“I have stopped asking myself that quite some time ago, anyway that’s the one” and you go to knock on the door but your arm is quickly grabbed and you’re pulled back.

“wait don’t, check the peephole first” 

You raise an eyebrow at him but shrug and just go along with it, a quick look reveals a bunch of frogs on the table and you gasp,

“they’re frogs!”

Kunsel harshly shushes you, and drags you away from the door again, “okay here is the plan” he says causing you to tense up immediately, “we do nothing about that,”

“what-”

“I go and cause a security blackout on all these top floors, you head to the president office… floor, whatever, and use your VP secretarial access to get in there and log into the president’s computer, plug that flash drive in, wait until the download is complete and get out” 

You are ready to protest so Kunsel adds, “I’ll make absolutely sure you won’t get caught and after that I will be forever in your debt, also you don’t like him either, and remember that the one you’re working for at the moment, aka his son, also completely hates him”

You sputter, “have you lost your mind! Despite all that this is still… company treason or something”

“I am not passing up this chance, I wouldn’t ask this of you like I’m doing right now if I didn’t completely seriously mean it, but I do understand if you refuse, I will attempt it on my own no matter what but I assure you that you will be fine, SOLDIERS honor”

You take a deep breath and in a rush you breathe out, “that doesn’t mean shit”

“it did to some people, and it does to me”

There is a moment of silent contemplation, “is this really necessary?”

Kunsel looks oddly sad for a moment, “right now I’m not really getting anywhere in my personal investigation of what exactly happened or is happening to Zack, they did a great job of covering it up, but I cannot imagine something not being accessible to the president” 

he sighs, “not knowing what happened to my friend is driving me crazy but if it was just that I’d be able to deal with it somehow, the problem is that they wrote him off as killed in action, so he’s just gone with no trace to follow. At this point I just either need to know if that’s truly the truth so I can move on already, but more importantly if they lied then that means he’s out there somewhere”

“and I’m guessing the idea of potentially abandoning your SOLDIER friend to his fate is something you can’t really live with”

“like I said, I understand if you decide to back out of this one, I will do everything I can to make sure you’re safe, but with something like this there is still a chance you can get caught I won’t lie, and the consequences would be… pretty bad. But I am not passing up on this chance, I really can’t”

“… okay, I trust you and… I want to help”

He lights up considerably, “alright” he squeezes your shoulder “alright we’re making this happen, you keep an eye on that door for now, I’ll notify you in a moment” he then rushes away.

You let out another deep breath wondering if you’ve made a huge mistake but when you turn and quietly move to the door to take another look you just see a dumb mess of a frog party and you spot the off white wine red striped weirdly old looking one and all of a sudden you realize that man, you really can’t stand the president. 

Not to mention that Kunsel seems to almost insinuate that Shinra is disappearing people to torture them or something… the idea is now stuck in your head, paired with your friends ominous warnings to stay away from the R&D department as much as possible, if not at all costs. It gives you this sense of foreboding, this bubbling feeling of curiosity that you sometimes get from a really good horror movie when you want to know but you don’t really want to know. Only this time it’s all painfully real. 

So yeah, you’re doing this now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did I end that on a bit of a cliffhanger?   
> sorry not sorry.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so...
> 
> it's been a while lmao, sorry about that.  
> but without further ado let's just get into it

The way up to the floor of the president is surprisingly void of any colleagues but you figure most have gotten notified of the current happenings and gone somewhere safe. 

You can also use that as an excuse if you do come across someone, you’ll just say that you’re up here to make sure everyone knows and heads down to the lower floors.

Before you realize it you’re in front of the big double doors to the president’s office and you take a deep breath to get rid of some of the nerves, your PHS pings and the doors open, you don’t have to check to know it’s Kunsel’s doing somehow.

This is the first and last time you do something like this… you’re no turk.

The room is big and even with the plants and the pillars it feels cold and empty there is a red carpet that leads to the desk that’s just a little too big in your opinion. Despite the carpet your footsteps sound overly loud but that might just be your nerves. Thankfully, once you’re at the desk pulling up the computer screens is easy enough and now you need the password, so you send a quick message to Kunsel and he tells you to give him a moment, in the meantime you try a couple yourself, starting with the old man’s birthday.  
Which you know, everybody knows the guy made a mini holiday out of it, not that you ever got the day off though…

It doesn’t work.

You try the founding date of the company. A classic.

Doesn’t work.

You think for a second before just putting in Rufus’ birth date, you never know, the vice president might hate his father but maybe the old man is more sentimental than you think, the fact that he’s having this Shinra history museum put in the building is evidence enough of that… or it’s just him being vain and cementing himself even more in the history books, or both… could be both.

You startle when you notice the screen gives you a new window and that tips you off that you managed to log in.  
Well, they do say that third time’s the charm… however, you can’t help but feel a bit off with the whole thing. 

You message Kunsel that you’re in so he’s no longer distracted finding a password you no longer need.  
you’re still giddy you got it right somehow when the computer finishes booting up.  
immediately a couple files open up, suggesting to you that the computer had merely been in sleep mode.

and then you realize, these come from the science department, in fact they come from the one guy Kunsel keeps warning you about.

these are from professor Hojo and… they are full of impossible to understand scientific jargon.

sadly, some pictures and context clues make up for that.

and after a quick skim that you just can’t help you wish you could go back to the happy feeling of guessing a password right.

One file seems to be about SOLDIERS but it’s too confusing to understand, you’ll really have to sit down and read carefully to make any sense of it and that takes time you simply don’t have.

It does remind you of the time where Kunsel answered to your question about the scarcity of new SOLDIERS by saying they aren't really making any new ones and that he thinks that they simply can't somehow. Which is why a bunch of talented seconds got promoted to first and why people like Roche can get away with the amount of shit they're pulling.  
Right now you think that probably also applies to your friend…  
dangerous thoughts, focus on the task at hand.

You plug in the flash drive and start the download, but lord that download is actually really slow…

You can feel your nerves getting worse and you try to distract yourself but the science files are still there and they are seriously not helping. If you see one more graphic and frankly overly gory picture you’re going to throw up and that’s absolutely not something you can afford.

You’re tense enough to snap and it’s then that you hear it, people near the door  
Why is the fucking thing so far away from the desk you nearly missed it!

You yank the drive back out and hide under the desk, there is nowhere else to hide after all.

You’re doing everything you can to be quiet and thankfully for you the security squad that came in isn’t really searching thoroughly.

“anybody in here?”

a pause

“sir?”

“mr. president sir?”

Alright okay that solves the mystery of why the fuck these guys are here.

“looks like the president is not in his office, let’s move out squad”

“what are the turks doing” comes a more hushed voice in the back followed by a hissed “shut up!” from his squad mate.

“wait-”

you freeze, your breath catches and your eyes dart around the tiny space you’re in, it catches on something shiny and yellow, or is that gold?  
You hear a pair of footsteps that seem to get a little closer to the desk,  
“what are you doing get back here”

“I just want to get a quick peek, I mean c’mon guys”

The hissing voice speaks up again, in the same manner but a bit louder this time, “are you insane there are camera’s everywhere!”

“yeah well if they are watching the cameras then why did we get send up here? They would know the press isn’t in his office, clearly they aren’t watching the cams, too busy with other dumb turk stuff”

“you moron, camera’s record, get your ass back here, we’re leaving now”

And even though the footsteps are moving away you can’t help but squeeze your eyes shut so hard it starts feeling uncomfortable, your head throbs, you feel as if you’ve reached a new level of stress you didn’t think you were capable of.

You make sure to tear into Kunsel for not either diverting them or properly warning you once they are completely gone, “what the ever gaia loving fuck Kuns!”

“listen, I know what you’re going to say”

“oh you know!?” 

“yes, but in my defense, I just want to say, I knew they were just there for the president and once they would see that he wasn’t in there they’d leave so it’s fine”

“it’s not fucking fine and how could you possibly have known that, what if you messed up somehow somewhere!?”

“well because one, I didn’t and two, nobody is missing you and three, I do not mess up, so let’s just- get this done and have this conversation when you’re not in that office anymore”

You are going to strangle him with your whip when you see him again.

It’s while you’re awkwardly crawling back out of the desk that you notice the yellow golden thing you saw is a handgun, a quicksilver model, expensive and great quality, but gaudy and it has the Shinra logo stamped on the hilt.

and strangely enough it’s that sight, that moment that empties your head of doubt, that makes you close your eyes and take a deep breath.  
you hate that thing, the gun, you hate it instantly, and then you feel like you hate a lot right now, the room, the desk and the computer, and all its fucked up files, the incompetent security and most of all you hate the president, and now you’re wondering if this is what Rufus feels like every time he has to deal with his father. It’s all awful and a mess, and obviously it doesn’t have to be, but it is, and that makes it worse.

Your breath leaves you in a rush.  
alright…  
change of plans,  
you take out your PHS again and you message Kunsel.

“spyware isn’t going to cut it, they’ll eventually find it, and the download takes forever. I’m making us a backdoor instead”  
The reply is a puzzled question but thankfully no rebuttal, Kunsel is asking you how you know how to make a backdoor they won’t be able to detect.

and you respond by saying you’ll tell him later.

You’re not particularly in the mood to tell him that eight years ago, your aunt, which you now call your weird slightly crazy aunt, asked you for help. She was worried her daughter was meeting bad people on the internet and your naïve ass agreed to help out. You made the backdoor for your aunt and that allowed her to discreetly keep tabs on her daughter, and when she accumulated enough stuff on her that she didn’t like she confronted her about it. It caused an explosive argument which ended with your cousin leaving Midgar altogether. Never looking back, never contacting anyone in your family again, nobody knows where she went. And despite your mother telling you it wasn’t your fault you still feel guilty about it.

Once you’re done you are out of that room in a flash and you head straight for the elevators. 

you take a moment to simply catch your breath in the small space before you notice the message light of your PHS flashing, it’s Kunsel again, telling you to meet up in the archives. Your hand shakes a little too much for comfort when you press the right button.

You did it, you madwoman you actually did it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay yeah back to it having been a while, life has gotten kind of suck for me atm not going to lie.  
> Covid is being a real asshole and my country probably has to go into full lockdown again, and on top of that I've gotten the note that my job won't extend my contract past December, so I am really busy finding new work.
> 
> this is my escape from that stuff, but at the same time I have very little time off... I really wish I had more time to write.  
> I'm not giving up on this though, no way. but things might take a little longer, hope that's okay.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the final aftermath of what happened

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah I know, it's been like a 100 years.  
> sadly, everything still sucks, I am going to try my hardest not to take longer than a month to post the next chapter. and in like less than two weeks I'll have vacation which should give me more than enough time to write.  
> man I am looking forward to that~

You're still focusing on your breathing when you leave the elevator, near floor 63, you're heading for the archives. Kunsel told you to meet up there.  
Everything is putting you further on edge now, every noise that you feel is out of place causes you to whip your head around, to be honest... you look kinda guilty.

You hear a loud voice and a much more familiar softer one, and you quicken your pace to turn the corner a little faster.

you absentmindedly note that it is odd that mayor Domino is still in the building, but it's quickly forgotten when the man loudly exclaims something again and purposefully strides away.  
It's then that Kunsel turns to you, "There you are, safe and sound. the hero of the day"

"shut up," you can't help but hiss, but you don't shake him off when he puts an arm around your shoulders to direct you in the right direction to leave, it's somewhat grounding which makes focusing on breathing and finally calming down a bit easier.

It feels strange to take comfort in his gesture, and at the same time feel annoyed by how calm and relaxed he seems. In fact, you are somewhat sure you've never seen him so at ease. There is always something jaded and tense about him, but it's absent now.

"The Turks found the board, so that situation is solved,"

"and the security feed?"

"fixed and framed,"

"that's good, I- wait what?"

"they will want a target or four to blame for this mess, I provided a few"

you haltingly try to take a deep breath and that’s when he wraps you up in a firm hug, "thank you, for everything, I will not forget this, and I will probably spend a long time trying to repay this favor"

"probably?" you murmur.

He chuckles and you pull away a bit, "yeah, also, I will not ask something like this from you again"

You wince at that, “yes that would be nice, no offence meant to you but…” you trail off

“does this have to do with the thing you said you’d explain later?”

“sort off, there were… files, of a certain department… and let’s just say I get your warnings now and I will make sure to avoid Shinra’s scientists even more than I already have, which might be hard because at least one of them has picked up on the fact that I am starting to get more and more involved in the guard dog training field and has made vague suggestions to further ‘improvements’. And now that whole thing is making me nauseous…”

You hear Kunsel letting out a soft hiss of breath, “that is- I mean- I’m sor-”

You stop him, “no let’s just- I need to process it all some more, let’s just talk about something else”

“alright”

Annoyingly enough this is followed by a tense and loaded moment of silence, the two of you are almost out of the building, you know that after that he’ll have to go back to his SOLDIER business and you’ll probably end up being sent home after being strictly informed not to speak to anyone what happened within the building.

You let out a frustrated groan and get a huff of amusement in return,

“the vice president” you suddenly say

“what?”

“he’s fine right? Dstar was with him”

“oh,” he says that as if it all suddenly makes sense now.  
He checks his PHS, “honestly, I don’t know”

“well now I’m disappointed”

The two of you leave the building and suddenly it’s crowded and noisy, “I’ll inform you as soon as I can” suddenly he’s all serious and stiff again but you catch his brief grin before he strides away, immediately after you’re intercepted by others and eventually you’re send home exactly the way you thought you would be.

You keep your PHS close and your work mail open at all times, you even check the somewhat creepy Shinra fan forums, not the Shinra electric power company fan forums, the SHINRA fan forums. 

You know Darkstar is fine, you are certain he’s done an amazing job in that mess and everything is alright, but it would be nice to have some solid confirmation of that fact.   
The company covering it all up so aggressively also isn’t helping.

In the end you decide to make yourself a relaxing cup of tea, you give your bouquet of flowers a new spot and take a moment to marvel at the fact they are still alive, you check PHS again and when there still isn’t any news you figure you might as well go to bed early, despite knowing your rest will be fitful, you can already tell you’ll spend most of the night thinking and second guessing your decisions of the past few hours, but any feeling of regret is absent surprisingly because you can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, if you check whatever the president is doing every once in a while you can help others a little, push them in the right direction or something.

It’s a nice thought, at the very least.

  
Darkstar is either patrolling or pacing, it could be both.  
Constantly checking the doors and windows, at first Rufus thinks it might be because he’s never been inside this particular penthouse but that’s unlike him.

Eventually Rufus thinks that the reason could very well be that the situation in the tower was a chaotic mess in which the dog did end up killing one of those… frog things, there was a threat, and he knows she is somewhere in that building, unlike the times where Rufus takes Darkstar somewhere, the dog must somehow be aware that when he leaves he, he leaves his charge in a safe location, but that’s not the case this time. 

Interesting.

But at the current moment it’s distracting and it’s preventing Rufus from letting the stress go as well.

So he figures, might as well just call her, she was evacuated with everyone else so she should be home by now, wherever that is… a quick search in her file tells him it’s in sector eight.

He doesn’t hesitate when he presses the call button on his PHS and puts it on speaker, she always answers.

And surely enough so does so this time too, but the usual “sir” sounds questioning, and it also sounds a lot quieter than usual, perhaps today’s events rattled her more than he thought, but that doesn’t make much sense, he’s seen her fight monsters.

Meanwhile you are silently freaking out, on one hand, great! The vice president is fine, clearly, and maybe he’s checking in on you, that would be kind of sweet actually… or, and this quickly makes you spiral in the silent freak out, maybe Kunsel fucked up somewhere and he’s informing you that a sniper is about to take you out but first he would like to hear why you betrayed Shinra before your head gets blown clean off.

Clearly your imagination is running wild, and it takes you a moment to respond when he finally says, “Darkstar is restless, I have a hunch it might be because he’s unable to confirm when ether you are alright or not”

There is a long pause and Rufus almost checks if the call didn’t somehow get disconnected before your voice comes through the PHS again, “oh Gaia, am I on speaker?” 

“yes”

“Dstar, I’m fine! C’mere” you call out and it catches Rufus weirdly off guard.

Darkstar quickly moves from his spot where he was staring through the window to in front of Rufus’ seat, perked up and alert.

“see? Or hear I should say, I’m okay” 

The big dog tilts his head with his ears moving forward to catch as much of your voice as possible, then he promptly makes himself comfortable at Rufus’ feet and lies down with a huff.

You then switch back to a far more professional tone of voice, “I sincerely apologize sir, I will make sure to work on this with him, I’ll teach him that he needs to remain calm and focused even when I’m not around to check up on”

Rufus is still working through the strange pang of disappointment he feels when he responds, “no, there is no need, contacting you is no bother to me at all” 

“oh,” you can’t help but clear your throat, caught off guard and being the slightest bit flustered. It was not him having to take time to contact you that worries you after al.   
“very well sir, just know that should you change your mind I can easily set up a proper training regimen for Darkstar to solve the issue”

“I do not doubt that” he says and you can the background noise of keyboard keys being pressed, “it is a good thing I have a hold of you now, I have your injury report here, we might as well go over it right away”

“sir?” you vaguely remember a paramedic asking you questions and filling out a form before you got send home. Deemed good enough to leave without additional care.

Rufus goes through the most important parts of the report with you.

And you, surprised and touched with his what you assume must be honest worry, obediently answer all his additional questions.

"That covers the whole report," he hums absentmindedly in thought while Darkstar decides then to press his head into the man’s lap and makes a barely audible whining noise.

"oh he needs to be walked," you say instantly, then you startle and tack on a "sir" belatedly.

Rufus lets out a long put upon sigh at that, clearly not a fan, "so he does"

"I'd offer to do it for you, mr. vice president, however..."

you can hear the amusement in his voice when he says, "yes it seems this day insists on messing up my schedule" and then you hear a lot of rustling and movement as he gets up to grab his coat. "on that note however, I've decided that you take the rest of the week off."

"I'm fine sir, honest"

there is a pause, and you can't see it but Rufus pointedly gives a side eyed look to his PHS while attaching the leash to Darkstar's collar. he hears that line so very often from the turks that he just can't take it seriously anymore, aka you're clearly deflecting, hiding your most likely quite stressed out state of mind, "I insist"

"there really is no need," but you're suddenly halted in pressing your point when he says your name, there is a strange stutter in your chest.

"I'd rather you miss a few days than for any lingering work stress to get worse and you end up needing a longer leave"

ah, of course, that makes sense. reliable, honest and professional, you nod, and then you realize he can't see that so you verbalize that you agree, it still sounds reluctant in your ears. "understood mr. vice president"

Darkstar's whining in the background is now a lot louder, and you sternly say his name, shutting it down instantly.

Rufus fondly says, "yes I better handle that" and he hangs up wishing you a pleasant evening and saying your name again.

the chest stutter is there again but less strong, you end up coughing while you put your PHS down, maybe some water will help. it would be very typical if you were to come down with something now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave a Kudos if you like, and feel free to scream at me in the comments.   
> I might not reply right away but I will eventually xp


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The week off from work arc starts for real. Sadly, you're a bit of a workaholic and you seem to have a bit of trouble letting go and do some relaxing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back (sorta)  
> and I have something amazing to share with you guys, cause this is insane!  
> the amazing Sel has made me a comic based on the first chapter of this fic as a christmas present.  
> it left me speechless, I love it so much.
> 
> I am putting a link here (also a link at the first chapter for obvious reasons).
> 
> https://twitter.com/MondselDraws/status/1347994684396892160

your diligent work ethic makes it so that the next day you wake up bright and early and are halfway in your neat clothing before you realize that you have the day off, multiple off days in fact.   
You’re not sure how many exactly, you should check that, and on that topic, and with the fact that you honestly cannot let go of your work mode now that you’ve already kind of started it… you decide to send the Vice President your ‘average day Darkstar’ time table.

It’s not that you think he won’t figure something out somehow, taking care of a dog is not rocket science after all. It’s just that you know D gets pushy when there is a ‘change’ in his schedule despite it being a ‘normal’ day.

You get a seemingly annoyed, “you have a week off work” in return, which you could have seen coming.   
Though to your surprise it’s followed by a “it is appreciated” from him. You smile, today is going to be a good day.

Meanwhile Rufus finally understands why Darkstar is so unbearably restless.

And after that you decide to finally do all the things you never really have enough time to do, starting with cleaning, you change your nice clothes for old ones and get busy. After having breakfast of course.

Cleaning your apartment from top to bottom takes about half of the day, and because you are on such a roll already you decide to do your biweekly grocery shopping and after that run an errand or two. 

It is quickly getting dark before you know it and you curse yourself a little for getting so distracted in the little bookstore, you knew it was a bad idea before you went inside, and you did it anyway, you had quickly moved past the history section where sometimes some books contradicted each other strangely enough, and the section that looked to be a bunch of reinterpretations of LOVELESS and let’s face it, the original is really vague but at least that lets you create your own interpretations all these new ones turn it into some epic tragic romance story and none ever seem to get it right.   
And you headed straight for the fiction section and started browsing the new entries.

You had been reading books about a world named Erda in which there was no materia of any kind but instead it had further advanced technology, it had greatly developed fantasy countries, each with its own language and everything, and there were no monsters at all, instead all conflict was driven by the people. Which sure, there was the Wutai war and all but you are used to a world unified under Shinra.

You hadn’t had the time to really read any of the new entries though, so you bought the one that would pick up after the second big war that was on planetary scale, a war over the entire world, now that was a frightening thought.

You are on your way home now though, this part of sector eight is always bustling with people however and you’re really looking forward to your comfortable apartment and curling up on your couch with your new book.

You decide to take a shortcut through some of the winding alleyways, pushing your bag further over your shoulder, and you can’t help but fiddle with your materia bracer under your jacket.  
The military police regularly patrol through the streets but they aren’t really know for checking the alleyways like… at all, so you can’t help but be just a smidge on edge. Nothing has ever happened in the years you have lived in sector eight however. But you’ve heard stories.

You end up going through the alleyway with some serious tunnel vision, trying to get through the winding claustrophobic space as quickly as possible, but you suddenly get startled by what very clearly sounds like whispering that is just a bit too close for your comfort.

You whip around and look behind you and see a trail of black wispy smoke, but other than that there is nothing and no one behind you, your breathing picks up and suddenly all manner of stories, ranging from muggings to frankly bad ghost stories are going through your head.

Gods what you wouldn’t give to have Darkstar by your side right now…

You look back in front of you and freeze as you see more wispy smoke trails and strange shadows shifting over the walls in the crappy street light, for a split second you swear you saw a bit of a gray wrinkly sheet of sorts straight up vanish in the distance, clearly the dark is playing all manner of tricks on you and is doing a great job in freaking you out.

you dart into a different turn, this will be a bit of a detour, but there is no way that you’re going to go in the direction of the creepy shadows.

You’re halfway through the new and thankfully normal alleyway when you see a crouched form partially hidden behind a couple boxes.

Someone who is hurt? Were the shadows a retreating figure perhaps… or, this is something completely unrelated, maybe they dropped something, or it could be a ruse.   
you’re still very much on edge, but you call out anyway, it’s not as firm and confident as you would have liked it to be though, 

“excuse me, is everything alright?” the amount of pink the person seems to be wearing is making you think they probably aren’t out to mug unsuspecting passersby , or dangerous at all for that matter. In hindsight, that’s a little naïve.

The person is quickly on their feet and facing you, and oh! You know this one.

“Aerith, hi” you’re surprised and not surprised at the same time, it’s a weird feeling.

Her posture relaxes, which puts you at ease as well. A quick glance shows just a normal empty alleyway behind you, and it also almost feels as if a certain tension has left the area.

You focus on Aerith again and get a little closer. She seems to be holding something.  
It turns out to be a shivering little kitten. You feel yourself take a sharp inhale and before you know it you’re directly in front of her checking the poor creature over.

The little one is too young to be away from their mother, most likely around 5 or 6 weeks old. More worryingly however, the kitten is too cold, and you say as much.

Aerith looks sad, “I figured as much” there is a moment of silence in which you make up your mind. She opens her mouth to say something when you blurt out, 

“I know a place, uhh.. people who can help-” you take a quick look, “her”.

Aerith snorts which makes you smile, sadness is a really bad look for her. 

“you know people?” Aerith tilts her head in a questioning manner.

You nod, “my parents actually, they are veterinarians, I doubt they’ll be particularly thrilled but I can assure you I can be very persuasive” and then you also tack on a, “also I’m their daughter” for good measure.  
“it’s in sector 7, but there is a direct transit line near the place so I can get there pretty quickly from here, the little girl will get the care she needs there” 

Aerith looks at the kitten and says, “alright” before gently handing her over. You tuck it away inside your coat against your chest and the little creature loudly protests at all the jostling, you softly apologize but the noise is a good sign at the very least.  
When you’re sure it’s safe, warm and secure, you look up at Aerith again.

She wags a finger in your direction, “I want updates” 

“of course! Do you have a PHS on hand?” for a moment you wonder, you are aware that people below plate have it a lot rougher than you do topside, but surely…

Aerith takes out her PHS and you happily tell her your contact information, meanwhile you think to yourself that your previous doubt was a bit stupid, of course do the people below plate have PHS’. You know for a fact that the military police and the roboguard can’t be everywhere all the time. Having some way to contact aid is simply a must, especially down there where it’s more dangerous.

Right?

Perhaps you should just take a look for yourself finally and see. Creating all these theories simply from the little fragments of info you get from other people and rumors isn’t really doing it for you anymore.

“I’ll text you when the little one is stabilized and going to make a full recovery, but… would it be alright if I came below plate, and met up with you at the undercity station in your sector? Texting back and forth is probably going to be a hassle and… well…” way to make it awkward, this always happens when you actually want something just for yourself.

Aerith hums, “sure” 

“great, uhm… details can be sorted out later, I should…” you gesture to the kitten, still huddled up in your coat against your chest.

“yes, get her to safety, off you go!” she pushes you in the direction of the street, you hurriedly wave her goodbye and then head straight for the direct line tram station. You have some precious cargo that needs to be dropped off right away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back, with some good news.  
> I cannot promise faster chapters, but the writing is happening again, hell yeah!  
> Also, I have a new job, which is just a load off my mind.  
> and with that said, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter.


End file.
